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Covered Call

BEGINNER income Capped loss

Earn rent on shares you already own.

When to use it

You own 100+ shares (or were assigned via the Wheel) and are neutral-to-mildly-bullish. Sell a 30–45 DTE call at 0.20–0.40 delta; exit at ~75% max profit.

Max profit

Premium + (call strike − cost basis).

Max loss

The stock falling, cushioned by the premium.

Payoff at expiry
illustrative shape — not to scale
profit zone loss zone X axis = stock price at expiry →
How it's built

Strikes shown low→high. Sell = collect premium · Buy = pay premium for protection or upside.

For your positions

You don't have any stock holdings of 100+ shares to apply a Covered Call to yet. Connect your broker on the Trade Log so we can analyse your positions, or browse a worked example below.

Hermes-evaluated setups

High-conviction per-ticker applications — setups with a confidence-adjusted win rate ≥ 80% over ≥20 backtested trades (95% lower bound — honest for the sample size, never a raw 100%). Avg P/L is the mean profit/loss per one-contract position.

Ticker Win Rate Avg P/L Sharpe Trades DTE
UVXY 89% +$3,138.00 2.8 30 30
SQQQ 88% +$910.00 3.6 42 21
ADBE 85% +$392.00 1.7 43 21
INTU 84% +$365.00 7.0 31 30
EQIX 92% +$342.00 10.2 63 14
SNPS 83% +$309.00 1.5 30 30
ROKU 83% +$301.00 3.0 30 30
APP 84% +$293.00 1.9 31 30
SNOW 89% +$234.00 6.9 31 30
HUM 84% +$229.00 2.7 31 30
DDOG 84% +$226.00 1.5 31 30
VXX 83% +$225.00 3.3 30 30
QQQ 83% +$208.00 4.2 30 30
TGT 83% +$182.00 3.0 30 30
XYZ 84% +$181.00 1.8 31 30
TMO 81% +$174.00 1.4 63 14
TXN 83% +$162.00 1.9 30 30
SYK 83% +$149.00 2.3 30 30
MA 88% +$142.00 2.1 43 21
SPY 84% +$137.00 2.2 31 30
HD 88% +$134.00 4.7 43 21
MRNA 81% +$134.00 0.5 43 21
AMD 89% +$129.00 8.6 31 30
VOO 84% +$128.00 2.2 31 30
ABNB 84% +$119.00 3.2 31 30
PDD 89% +$119.00 9.5 30 30
CASY 84% +$112.00 1.3 42 21
NET 84% +$108.00 3.8 31 30
AAPL 89% +$102.00 9.6 30 30

Backtested results are not a guarantee of future performance.